CRB Cunninghams
CRB Cunninghams - Market leading education software systems
CRB Cunninghams are industry-leading providers of cashless catering, online payment and identity management solutions to 3,300+ UK schools.
CRB Cunninghams has over 59 years of experience providing software, hardware, and services to help UK schools become cashless and benefit from the numerous effects this brings, such as reduced debt, food waste reduction and free school meal anonymity.
From Self-Serve Kiosks to their award-winning Fusion Online pre-order meal app, CRB Cunninghams’ vision is to deliver ‘Innovation that Serves’ by investing in new solutions and creating new ways to improve how schools deliver an efficient cashless catering offering to all users.
CRB Cunninghams: speeding up meal service at Tiffin School with Self-Serve Kiosks
With growing student numbers and limited break times, Tiffin School needed to reduce queues and speed up service and introduced CRB Cunninghams’ Self-Serve Kiosks to offer a modern, self-service solution.
Increasing speed of service
Senior Finance Officer Tina Costello explained the need to speed up their lunch service and reduce crowding in the busy dining hall:
"Speed was our big problem. We needed more tills for lunchtime crowds without needing more people on tills."
The additional point of sale has dramatically reduced queues and gives students more time to enjoy their meals.
"It’s so much faster than paying at the till, and pupils love it. It’s like checking out at the supermarket."
How the Self-Serve Kiosk works
- Tap or scan: Students access their accounts by tapping their ID cards or scanning their fingerprints
- Select items: They scan pre-packaged items using the barcode reader or choose from a touchscreen menu
- Checkout: The total is displayed on screen, and students complete the purchase using their cashless account
Tiffin School now operates a self-serve-only breakfast:
"We've set the menu up in different tabs: hot and cold food, breakfast, and paninis. Pupils know exactly where all the tabs are. They quickly find items and pay faster than a traditional till, and staff can get on with sandwich prep.”
With young consumers favouring independent purchasing, bringing self-service technology into schools was a natural progression. Carl Lewis, CRB Cunninghams Release Manager, explained:
"We developed the Self-Serve Kiosk for schools and colleges to provide an easier way to purchase meals. The kiosks are built into Fusion Cashless, working seamlessly alongside our traditional tills."
Since launching Self-Serve Kiosks, Tiffin’s students have enjoyed a modern, interactive purchasing experience, and staff have benefited from streamlined catering operations.
Learn more about CRB Cunninghams’ Self-Serve Kiosks.
LACA Partner Q&A with Gareth Hunter, Corporate Sales Manager at CRB Cunninghams
CRB Cunninghams has over 59 years of experience providing software, hardware and services, helping schools become cashless and benefit from the benefits this brings, including reduced debt, reduced food waste, and free school meal anonymity. CRB Cunninghams' vision is to deliver 'Innovation that Serves' by continuing to invest in new solutions and creating new ways to improve how education caterers deliver an efficient school meal service and how pupils access school food.
What is your school food's unique selling point?
Our unique offering is Fusion Cashless, the all-in-one cloud-hosted cashless catering system for schools. With everything under one roof, including cashless catering, nutritional analysis, ID management and online payments, school users benefit from a first-class meal service and improved student experience by streamlining and simplifying how school staff manage their cashless systems, saving key time and resources, with all solutions streamlined from one provider.
What new products/services have you launched or are looking to launch in 2024?
As part of our commitment to 'Innovation that Serves', we continuously enhance our existing systems and identify new solutions to improve the school catering experience. We're currently launching our iPay online payment app, enabling parents to access their online payment system directly from their mobile phones for seamless school payments, and Fusion Hub, our most significant upgrade to Fusion Cashless.
We're also outlining a kitchen management and health and safety solution, a new way to digitise how school kitchen staff manage food items and comply with health and safety regulations.
What do you do to support the school food service?
We create and deliver new ways to improve how catering staff deliver school meals and how pupils access these. For example, launching our award-winning Fusion Online app a few years ago meant that pupils could pre-order school meals from their phones, cutting down on lunch queues and kitchen staff could reduce food wastage by knowing how many meals to prepare in advance.
Since launching the app, we've also acquired Nutmeg. This complete nutritional analysis platform combines menu management, nutritional analysis, and labelling, adapting to changing guidelines and helping school caterers meet food standards and deliver nutritious and compliant school meals.
How can LACA and school food operators support your organisation?
By working together to champion the importance of technology and innovation in school catering, especially safeguarding pupils and finding new and efficient ways to provide nutritious school meals. Whether that's digitising how schools and caterers plan menus and oversee allergen management or modernising meal delivery through pre-ordering, advocating the importance of innovation in school catering has never been more important.
What is your first memory of school food?
The best memories were always the desserts and, of course, being able to get "seconds" on lucky days.
The mother of ex-England and Man Utd captain Bryan Robson worked in the kitchen of my primary school, and I still remember how excited we all were when she would bring in signed photographs to hand out to all the children.